Movenbank has announced that it will soon begin to "alpha test" its branch-less, paper-less, and card-less banking service.

"This is the reboot of Banking as we know it. Movenbank will combine the best aspects of both a financial services provider and a customer-focused, tech start-up. It is integrating mobile, online engagement, social media and gamification into a new kind of customer experience for banking products and financial services.

Movenbank's Alpha site will launch on 1st October 2011, with commercial operations due to commence in the second half of 2012.

Over on our sister blog, Payments Views, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson has posted some thoughts on NACHA's recent Request for Comment about its proposed rule change to support "Expedited Processing and Settlement" of ACH transactions.

Simplee has announced the launch of a fully integrated electronic bill payment service, "making it possible for the first time to pay all of your medical bills and manage all of your health insurance plans and expenses in a single place. Whether for an individual or an entire family, Simplee's Web-based personal health care expense management service is now the easiest way to access a complete snapshot of your health care picture and then pay, reconcile and confirm medical payments at the click of a mouse."

Earlier this year, "the Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia hosted a workshop to discuss insolvency risk in the network-branded prepaid-card value chain, and, in particular, whether the insolvency of a key participant in the value chain poses a threat to consumers and banks." Philip Keitel has recently published a paper (PDF) that summarizes the information presented at the workshop.

NCR has announced that it has entered into a strategic agreement to integrate Sparkfly’s mobile marketing platform with Radiant point-of-sale software, including Aloha.

“While many mobile commerce and digital promotions companies are entering the market, the true value for our customers is the integration of these platforms with point-of-sale transactional data,” says Andy Heyman, senior vice president, NCR Hospitality and Specialty Retail. “Sparkfly’s ability to enable personalized mobile promotions makes them an ideal partner to provide businesses with the best tools for building connections with consumers.”

Sparkfly’s digital offer redemption capability provides a unique way to engage individual consumers with targeted promotions based on SKU-level details of their actual purchases.

“Isis’ technology standards provide the direction and certainty needed for the development and deployment of NFC devices and the mobile commerce ecosystem,” said Scott Mulloy, chief technology officer, Isis. “Working together with the device makers and our founding mobile carriers, Isis can provide the consumer choice and scale necessary for widespread adoption of mobile commerce.”

The European Commission has announced that it has opened an antitrust investigation into the standardization process for payments over the internet ('e-payments') undertaken by the European Payments Council (EPC).

The Commission will undertake a careful examination of the standardization process to ensure that competition is not unduly restricted, for example through the exclusion of new entrants and payment providers who are not controlled by a bank.

The EPC is the coordination and decision-making body of the European banking industry for payments.

Affinity Solutions has announced the launch of Spot ON Deals, 'the first and only merchant-centric daily deals/group discount platform in the marketplace.'

Spot ON Deals improves on popular first generation daily deals programs by allowing participating merchants to target the right customer with the right offer at the right time. Using Affinity's proprietary 'Dashboard' analytics, merchants can use data-driven insights to hone in on key segment and consumer spending trends. Further, Spot ON Deals will enable merchants to track the effectiveness of their offers, while deploying 'follow-on' offers to drive repeat purchases, loyalty and customer lifetime value.

Joanna Stavins of the Boston Fed has published a Public Policy Brief entitled "Potential Effects of an Increase in Debit Card Fees".

Recently announced changes to debit card interchange fees could lead to an increase in the cost of debit cards to consumers. This brief analyzes the potential effects of an increase in debit card fees or in bank account fees by using the results of the 2008 and 2009 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice (SCPC).

The Payment Systems Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia has published its Annual Report 2011. The report contains lots of interested data and graphs on payments behavior, interchange fees, merchant service fees, etc. in Australia.

Over on Payments Views, our sister blog, Glenbrook has posted an excerpt from its South Korea eCommerce Market Analysis report that describes how the bill-to-mobile phenomenon works in South Korea. Many consider South Korea the cradle of mobile billing and its interesting how the payment method has evolved over time.

Bottomline Technologies has announced it "has gone live with a secure, real-time solution for sending and receiving invoices electronically via the global SWIFT network. E-invoicing presents a significant opportunity for banks and their corporate customers to streamline paper-laden processes and reduce costs while increasing visibility into the financial supply chain."

American Express has announced the launch of American Express Merchant Financing, "a set of financing products that provide qualified merchants with quick and simple access to cash for their business needs. Eligible merchants now have the opportunity to leverage their relationship with American Express to tap into a convenient and hassle-free source of capital, which is repaid automatically through settlement charges and accompanied by low fixed fees."

Intuit has announced a number of new services designed to fuel Intuit's transformation from a software company to a connected services company. Included in the announcement was a new prepaid debit card for use as a Intuit GoPayment payout instrument.

To make it easier for small businesses to get started processing credit cards on a mobile device, GoPayment will soon enable users to deposit funds directly onto a prepaid debit card. This will make it faster to start taking payments because new users can sign up for GoPayment without needing to provide bank account details. For smaller businesses, it also provides a convenient way to keep their business finances separate from their personal funds. The prepaid debit card for GoPayment will be available later this fall.

Yesterday, Intuit held its annual investors day to update the investment community on progress and strategy –– including that of Intuit Payments. Slides and webcast available here.

Discover Financial Services has reported financial results for the third quarter 2011. The company said Discover card sales volume was an all-time record of $26.3 billion in the quarter, up 9% from the prior year.
Total loans grew 8% from the prior year to $54.1 billion and were up 3% from the prior quarter, with credit card loans up 2% from the prior year and 3% from the prior quarter.
The delinquency rate for credit card loans over 30 days past due continued to decline reaching a new record low of 2.43%. The credit card net charge-off rate declined to 3.85%.

Cartera Commerce has announced a new capability that enables card issuers to drive revenue from the local advertising market.

Cartera's new performance-based solution enables issuers to market thousands of local, card-linked offers to their customers, who redeem offers just by swiping their cards in local stores. Cartera securely and privately tracks transactions and automatically delivers savings and rewards back in cardholders' accounts in cash, points or miles.

In related news, Cartera also announced a strategic marketing agreement with TransFirst to offer this solution to TransFirst merchants.

Citi has announced that its Global Transaction Services unit has enhanced its WorldLink Payment Services to "support payments in exotic currencies, such as the Chinese Renminbi (RMB) and Iraqi Dinar (IQD). In addition, WorldLink has developed its network to support current and future exotic currency offerings. These enhancements allow for significant reductions in settlement time, increased visibility of important transactional details and a reduction of volume capacity against exotic currencies."

Retail Decisions (ReD)has announced the ReD Fraud Alert service, a new service which enables card issuers and merchants to exchange information in the fight against online payment fraud.

Using information normally exclusive to the issuer, ReD creates a channel to enable its merchants to use a customer’s full account profile to decide whether to accept or reject a transaction for items with a high ticket price.

PaymentOne has announced PayOne FastPay, "an industry-first mobile payments program that guarantees disbursements to merchants in as fast as seven days, dramatically reducing the typical 60-90 day waiting period for payouts required by carriers and other mobile payment vendors."

The Federal Reserve has released a set of frequently asked questions (and answers) about "General-Use Prepaid Cards and Circumvention and Evasion". Given the Regulation II exemptions for certain reloadable prepaid cards, there seems to be a lot of industry questions about what exactly can be done with a general-use prepaid card and still have the card considered exempt from Regulation II interchange caps.

eMarketer has released projections on Facebook's worldwide revenue over the coming years. Most of the focus is on ad-derived revenue, but they are also projecting $470 million in Facebook Credits revenue for the company in 2011. (This means eMarketer is projecting $1.56 billion in Facebook Credits TPV this year. - Ed)

The Smart Card Alliance has released a white paper that explains and compares the different approaches to mobile payments in the U.S. –– integrated NFC, non-integrated contactless, bar codes, cloud-based wallets, and text messaging. The white paper, entitled "The Mobile Payments and NFC Landscape: A U.S. Perspective" is free and available for download now.

TechCrunch is reporting that American Express has acquired Sometrics, a virtual currency platform and in-game payments provider serving the online game industry, for $30 million. Supposedly, Sometrics will be used within American Express' Serve digital payments platform. No details have been disclosed, but AmEx has confirmed the acquisition with a tweet.